Letter: Listen to readers on lockdown easing plan

Shan Oakes from Knaresborough comments on the lockdown review and the roadmap.
Harrogate town centre in isolation. Photo by Jeannette Wilson.Harrogate town centre in isolation. Photo by Jeannette Wilson.
Harrogate town centre in isolation. Photo by Jeannette Wilson.

In response to your invitation to comment about the lockdown review and the roadmap to re-starting the nation’s economy, I should like to build on points made in some letters from the past two weeks.

First, I strongly agree with Barbara Penny’s warning of the dangers of a new swathe of Covid illness if restrictions are relaxed.

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Now is not the time for children to mix together in schools again. It would lead to deeper lockdown over the dismal winter months.

Now is the time to starve the virus by keeping away from each other physically, taking stock, supporting each other in new (and old) ways, and reviewing our whole destructive value system - which leads to an array of huge but overlooked issues (Susie Little reminded us that Covid Co-operation Harrogate promotes support for these).

On transport, Cary Thornton and Bob Faulds raised concerns showing we need a deep and radical review in the context of a remodelled society and economy (for example, more homeworking will affect usage of public transport, and HS2 will certainly be a hugely wasteful and destructive vanity project).

Neil Trickey rightly said we should stop inappropriate over-development. Charlotte Winn made the case that we should creatively engage with a different vision for the town centre – a place where people live, rather than a ghost town.

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Sadly, however, this Government lacks any kind of creative vision – the vision which is needed now to give us hope. Hence its many U-turns as it thrashes about doing the bidding of its corporate donors even in the knowledge that more deaths from the virus will ensue.

Finally, John Laird points out that the ‘lions led by donkeys’ expression is still applicable – this time to NHS staff (and many other keyworkers, as we are reminded by Roger Litton).

It seems that your readers are moving in the same direction – all we lack is a Government which works for us, the people, rather than its donors.